Flynn Reed: a young, shy 17 year old boy who was bullied, hence the injuries in the variations seen below in 'Figure 1' - Flynn had suffered severely from anxiety and depression in the 1990s, having taken medication for it (the pill bottle is labelled Lorazepam). He attended Rivenbrook High, a boarding school in the middle of a cursed forest. Many tragedies have befell the area over decades since the school campus was built around the late 1800s to early 1900s over possible ancient burial sites and ruins, and Flynn’s case was one of the last sacrificed to the woods, having been murdered by his own estranged father David out of obsession.
(Figure 1.)
Onto the design choices! Firstly, his clothing design and callouts. Some boarding schools in the UK retain students until they are 18, and Flynn was 17, so it still makes sense. Flynn’s original design was supposed to be a vest over a white shirt by default, and while I explored different designs with sketches in blog #1, his design was originally this quick doodle I made below.
(Figure 2.)
However, I decided to play around with blazer designs. I was inspired by seeing students walking around Norwich – I used to live nearby Notre Dame High school back in university, and have visited the Cathedral often enough to see Norwich School students walking around. The school uniform from Notre Dame comprises of plain blazers with a sewn on badge, plain black trousers with a black belt (Flynn is skinny so this is needed), black polished shoes such as Oxford shoes, and a plain white shirt – “must be worn tucked into trousers or skirt. Top button to be fastened at all times.” They also have a bottle green V-neck jumper with the logo that is optional. The style of the striped tie also depends on what year you are. However, the uniform style is not limited to Notre Dame, of course, as many UK schools have similar wear. I was in one of the few secondary schools who did not have a uniform, meaning I had to look into more research! What I do notice is that the shirts/blazers tend to fit poorly, and so I purposefully made it too large/long on Flynn’s skinny, malnutritioned physique. Perhaps it was a hand-me-down from his older brother Ryan? I also saw a video from 1994 for inspiration for the school uniform from Norwich School: https://youtu.be/itZrRreElH8
(Figure 3. One of Norwich School’s uniform designs.)
The callouts on all characters are items of importance such as possessions or close-ups. I decided to give Flynn an old-fashioned leather messenger bag/ satchel, since for formal wear at schools they used to be popular, and continue to be considered timeless and sophisticated – the messenger bag started becoming fashionable in the 1980s despite their practical uses. They are also lightweight and the Rivenbrook school will have had lockers across the campus except for boarding houses, meaning that Flynn would not have had to walk far to collect books.
Being at boarding school is expensive, and Flynn’s mother would likely have been able to afford technology and equipment for him as he was heavily interested in media, including photography and old films. One of these possessions was a phone – which he uses to communicate to the Detective after his death. I was considering a Nokia 9000i communicator (1996), but they were extremely expensive (approximately £1000 when they hit the market at the time), so decided to go with a phone that looks similar to the original Nokia model 3110 (1997). Other items not pictured include a Polaroid SLR 680, a dictaphone and a diary – these would have provided clues in game. The school logo (Fleur-de-lis) is a reference to Flynn’s French heritage, and the symbol signifies “perfection, light, and life” – a rather ironic reference to such a dark story of death and decay.
(Figure 4. Alex Lawther as depicted in a BAFTA interview and ‘The End of the F**king World’ [2017])
Secondly, the face. I decided to try have a go at using photography reference again for this project, since in my Wendigo project in this portfolio, it worked really well and was a successful experiment. I decided to use the actor Alex Lawther for inspiration as a face model. My reasons are because Lawther has played roles of awkward, timid teenagers extremely well, including in the movie ‘Ghost Stories’(2017), showing his experience in horror films. He has also played students, such as in ‘The Imitation Game’(2014), ‘Goodbye Christopher Robin’(2017), ‘Old Boys’(2018) and the short film ‘Yussef is Complicated’(2015). His personality is rather soft-spoken and he could be described as an ‘old soul’ – all traits that fit the character, including the physical traits. This made him a great fit for Flynn overall. Flynn’s hairstyle is a low-fade bowl-cut with a side parting. Curtained haircuts and bowlcuts were popular during the 1990s, and so it would not be uncommon to see such a hairstyle. During his time in school, he would have originally had more medium length hair all the way round at the same length, but an incident occurred where a bully stuck chewing gum in his hair during class meant that his older brother had to shave it into an undercut as he could not fix it.
(Figure 5. Using Lawther's face as inspiration. Screenshot taken from Departure[2015])
UPDATE (December 2020):
In my own time after graduation, I have continued to work on this project and will be updating these journal entries over time - whether these pieces are self-indulgent sketches or concept art. I have decided to practice working also for a 3D artist, should the need for one ever arise, or for my own practice for my future career. I have created a simple sketchy grayscale model sheet with both 'alive'(1998) and 'dead'(ghost) variations. It had been a while since I have created a model sheet, but it was fun! Flynn's height would be around 5'8". I decided eventually that giving Flynn the blazer jacket as a default design was better and more recognizable rather than the earlier callout sheet, where the 'default' design is without it - akin to the original sketch.
(Figure 5. Top sheet 'Dead'[Ghost])
(Figure 6. Bottom sheet 'Alive'[1998])
The top sheet shows Flynn's details as a ghost, where in death he retains his wounds and dirt from when he was kidnapped by his own father and beaten. The other 'clean' version served as a base model sheet, for Flynn before his death in 1998.
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The next blog will focus on the Detective's design choices!
- Thank you for reading!
